Ironically, it was drawn up just a few weeks after the Governor had been
condemned in New York—condemned explicitly on the score of the printing
press about which he fulminated to the Board of Trade.
The trial of the printer was the critical moment for all concerned, the
leaders of both sides being as anxious about the outcome as was Peter
Zenger himself. Cosby had done everything he could to ensure a verdict
in his favor. The defense countered by bringing in the leading attorney
of Philadelphia, perhaps of the colonies, Andrew Hamilton. The common
people of the city thronged the galleries as the proceedings began.
What happened during that momentous August day is one of the moving,
triumphant pages of American history. We can still feel, in reading the
text of the trial, the emotional tremor that vibrated in the courtroom
at the clash of two powerful forces. We can still follow Andrew Hamilton
as he stalks his opponents like an implacable duelist with a rapier,
pinking now one and now the other as they venture to challenge him. We
can understand the hot befuddlement of Chief Justice Delancey and
Attorney General Bradley when they found their prepared defenses useless
against a kind of attack they never expected; we can understand their
moral disintegration when the verdict went against them, and they had to
think what to say when they reported to the governor’s mansion. How must
they have felt when the crowd began a delirious demonstration to show
its delight that Peter Zenger was a free man? How must they have felt, a
few hours later, when they heard that Andrew Hamilton was being treated
like a hero by the magistrates of the city?
Governor Cosby had suffered a crushing rebuke. His sword had turned into
a boomerang. Having confidently looked for an end to the obnoxious
newspaper, he found it justified in the most complete and unanswerable
way—by the judgment of a group of men typical of those he governed. No
longer was there any hope of silencing his critics, or of arguing with
any kind of plausibility that they were guilty of seditious libel. His
defense was shattered on both fronts, for New York was sure to have a
moral for London. The trial he forced with such demanding arrogance
undermined him, and a modest German printer became the symbol of his
catastrophe—something the great Lewis Morris had been unable to engineer
in face-to-face conferences with the British authorities.
The verdict seems to have broken Cosby’s will. Already a sick man,
suffering from pneumonia, he made no attempt to rouse himself for a
renewal of the battle that had gone on from the beginning of his
administration. He had never collected the salary from Van Dam, he had
lost the critical elections, Alexander was still unpunished, Peter
Zenger was beyond his reach, and a free press was definitely established
in New York. Cosby was defeated, and he knew it.
He did strike one last blow at the old enemy who had started the
trouble: he suspended Rip Van Dam from the Council. Characteristically,
the obstinate Dutchman refused to acknowledge the suspension, and
challenged George Clarke, the next ranking member of the Council (and a
Cosby man), for the executive power in New York.
William Cosby was, appropriately enough, the prime mover in the quarrel,
but this time he was not personally involved, for he died—a discredited
man, but still Governor of New York—on March 10, 1736.